MAGICAL MEDICINE: HOW TO MAKE AN ILLNESS ... - Invest in ME

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• “People who present with somatisation disorders are often difficult to manage (and) may arose (sic) strong
feelings in clinicians”
• patients with a “rating as ‘difficult’ (are) strongly associated with functional disorders”
• “Difficulties in Doctor – Patient Relationship: Correlations with Number of Somatoform Symptoms (extent
of frustration with patient’s symptoms; perception that patient is manipulative)”
• “Correlations with GP Clinical Grading of Somatisation (helpless behaviour of patient; tiresome patient;
difficult patient)”
• “Attitudes of GPs toward patients with medically unexplained symptoms (they are difficult to manage; they
have personality problems; they have a psychiatric illness)”.
In his slide “GPs’ Views: irritable bowel and CFS compared”, Sensky states that IBS patients have an
anatomical or physiological basis for their symptoms but there is no such basis in CFS; that IBS patients
do not have a low threshold for symptoms but that CFS patients do have a low threshold for symptoms;
that IBS patients do not lack stoicism but that CFS patients do lack stoicism, and that IBS patients do not
transgress the obligations of the sick role but CFS patients do transgress it.
Sensky maintains that GPs make “inappropriate referrals” for patients with medically unexplained symptoms
(MUS) and teaches that GPs should make “persuasive statements” to patients with MUS in the form of
“Provision of a ‘non‐disease’ explanation of the patient’s symptoms”.
His slides state that: “medical tests are logically ambiguous”; that interventions for somatoform disorders
should include “reattribution” of the patient’s presenting symptoms and he gives as an example: “I feel my
heart pounding in my chest”, which he dismisses as somatic (he makes no mention of the possibility of
autoimmune thyroiditis or of dysautonomia, both of which could cause a pounding heart and both of which
are documented in the literature as occurring in ME/CFS).
Why is someone holding such views about ME/CFS as Professor Sensky a member of the PACE Trial
Steering Committee? Who approved his membership of the TSC?
It seems that he shares many of the same views about ME/CFS as Professor Simon Wessely so, as someone
who seems to share Professor Wessely’s views about ME/CFS, perhaps it is unsurprising that he is involved
with the Wessely School’s PACE Trial.
Perhaps it is also unsurprising that the authors of the PACE Trial Manuals repeatedly paint a picture of
widespread institutionalised prejudice and contempt for ME/CFS patients from other professionals. Who,
apart from Professor White, approved them?
Professor Clair Chilvers
Professor Chilvers has had an immensely distinguished career. A former pupil of Cheltenham Ladies’
College, in March 2009 she was aged 63. She went to Nottingham in 1990 as Professor of Epidemiology, and
from 1996 she was Dean of the Graduate School. She was appointed Regional Director of Research and
Development (R&D) in the Department of Health at NHS Executive Trent in October 1999. She has been
Head of R&D in the Midlands and East of England Directorate of Health and Social Care. She was Chair of
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust, which is one of the largest providers of mental health services in
England. She has been a member of the Department of Health Committee on Carcinogenicity of Food,
Consumer Products and the Environment from 1993 to 2000 and a member of the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution from 1994 to 1998. Her research work at the Institute of Cancer Research in
London involved studies on both breast and testicular cancer. She also has a degree in statistics and a